


Cruel

by MyIvy



Category: Journey into Mystery, Thor (Comics)
Genre: Child Abuse, Childhood Sexual Abuse, Kid Loki, Sexual Assault
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-07
Updated: 2013-04-24
Packaged: 2017-11-24 02:33:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/629332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MyIvy/pseuds/MyIvy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I don't know how to summarize this, leave suggestions in the comments?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Setting: This is badly shoe-horned into the the Journey Into Mystery/Mighty Thor universe with a few changes.  
> Trigger Warning for: child sexual abuse, sexual assault, graphic violence. Some of these warnings are not for this particular chapter but I wanted to warn people ahead of time.  
> Contains: a half-faked Norse god that there’s basically just a footnote worth of information on, Kid!Loki, Thor, Warriors Three, Freyja, Gaea, Gudrun and other various Asgardians.
> 
> I should clarify, this isn’t a pornographic story. I made this because Loki’s ostracization within Asgard really hit home with me and I thought I could write something therapeutic. Ugh, I know the other thing I have posted is sexual assault related, I swear I'll eventually think of something without that in it.

Thor left him alone with them a lot. He had to. Unlike the others he had an entire life outside of Asgard's walls. There was quite a bit of bullying but it wasn’t anything that wasn’t healed by the next day.

The only really safe place was the alcove he'd packed full of books in the vast library. Sometimes he thought he was the only literate person in the whole realm, as little as anyone else came here. He was certain his previous self had been almost the only one to use it, sometimes he would find little notes by his other self in them. It gave him a strange shiver up his spine.

He supposed the others had more pressing things to worry about. He was worrying about the same things but he just couldn't solve them with magic and swords the way the others could. It was fine. He liked books more than people and without his magic, knowledge was very good to have.

Volstagg, ridiculously enough, was the one who kept him safe the most. The other two were tasked with it as well but they were much more reluctant about it. Volstagg having children the same age as Loki helped a lot with that. But even then, he didn't like him. No one here liked him. So he wasn't surprised when it was Ikol that informed him of the assembly that had been called that morning. Of course! No one had remembered to send word him, how unsurprising. Actually it was probably on purpose, they definitely thought he could do with less information. He was a little out of breath when he arrived, thankfully he'd only missed the beginning bit where the quintet said a bushel of trite things to get them started.

The current governing body of Asgard was a group of five. Three women and two men. Frigga spoke first to the gathered Asgardians.. “It has come to our attention that the treaty with the dark elves has been broken last evening when-”

“A bat born without eyes could have seen that eventuality coming,” he muttered.

Ikol had told him a big difference between himself and his previous self was that his previous self could contain all the little remarks that came to his mind. Loki could contain ALMOST all of them. Almost.

“As such, we are hereby placing an embargo on the following Svartalfheim imports: Dark amethyst powders, Deep River cumin, Thrice and Twice Blessed Salts from the Circles,--”

“If they have Thrice Blessed Salts how will anyone stop them from slipping the borders?” Loki commented. Thrice Blessed Salts were a core ingredient in Dark Elf glamour rituals.

“We know this will be difficult for all of you,” said Idunn. “But be assured that we are working with the Dark Elves to alleviate this issue. We’ve been assured this is the work of a few malcontents.”

“A few my foot, she just wants her shipments of mint jelly.” Idunn’s passion for mint jelly was a secret but not a well guarded one. Well, if you were Loki, no secrets were very well guarded.

“Oh you think so?” A man with a much shorter beard than most was standing by him. He had a circlet holding back his thick, dark red hair and had a very black cloak slung over his shoulder. But he had a few strange things on him, a wooden earring in the shape of an owl, a few golden bangles on the ankle of his boots. “You really do have a quick little tongue, don’t you?”

Loki blinked at him, so used to not being acknowledged that it caught him off guard. “I don’t know you,” said Loki bluntly, more surprised by this fact than anything. He knew all the Asgardians.

“I don’t keep to Asgard. The last time I was here you were a child. Well, you’re a child now. I mean the first time you were a child. We never met though. I’m Ullr.”

“You don't keep to Asgard?” he asked, tilting his head.

“It’s boring,” he shrugged, putting a hand on his shoulder and guiding him away from the throng. “Why stay here when there’s so much out there?” He looked a bit like Fandral, but where Fandral was a mass of muted yellow and green, this man seemed clad in blacks, deep reds and touches of gold in surprising accents.

“You want to see something?”

Loki nodded, finding himself so stunned by the warmth and familiarity that he truly did want to see ‘something’. Well, he usually wanted to see somethings. Ullr’s voice was a little strange to his ears, it was rough and casual and with a slightly different sound to his words. He'd never heard an accent in an Asgardian.

Ullr took Loki back to a stable where he’d tethered a massive black horse that had the same startling red hair. He pulled a strange piece of wood and cloth from a saddlebag and handed it over. 

“What is it?” Loki asked, turning it over in his hands. The board was covered in symbols and the cloth was actually a collection of ropes, a massive tassel appended to the wood, as if a weaving had come undone. The strands were knotted at intervals, accented with beads.

“A text. A coded one. The knots are a guide to deciphering the board. I think. Not sure. I was hoping you could figure it out for me.”

“Me?” Loki started, staring at him. 

“Mmhm,” he said easily, petting the horse’s face affectionately. “I heard you were reborn, and no longer a terror. Thought I could take advantage of it. A Loki that’s not consumed with murdering Thor or whatever other ridiculousness, that’s a useful Loki, I thought.”

“You trust me?” asked Loki, it fell out of his mouth without permission.

“Mhn? Trust? Well, I don’t know you, do I?” He smiled as he picked Loki up with strong hands, settling him on his horse. “How about this, I’ll hang around while you figure that thing out with that clever head of yours, and in the meantime you and me get to know one another.”

Loki had to hold onto the saddle when Ullr started leading it forward at a lazy pace. “I..what? Why...what!”

Ullr shrugged. “Eh, I don’t stop in very often. I’m an old god. I don’t look like it, but I am. I used to run around with Odin and his brothers.”

“That’s very old,” said Loki, nodding in agreement, staring at him. How had he not heard of this god before?

“Like I said. I don’t really fit in here. I don’t like most Asgardians. I mean, they’re all right. But out of the Nine, they’re probably the most boring.”

It was like everything he was saying could have been his own thoughts.

“So, what do you say? Be my companion for a while?”

“Yes. Yes, I’d like that,” he nodded, his face feeling hot.  
\--------

Being around Ullr was strange. Very good but also strange. Loki couldn’t put his finger on it. He felt very familiar. Ullr told him stories about where he’d been and things he’d done. He was very clever, Loki found. All his things had some story behind them, how he’d tricked an elf or dwarf out of an earring, out of a brooch, out of a goblet.

Sometimes he stole whole herds of cattle! And Loki believed all of it, he wasn’t lying at all about these things.

He could find nothing in any book about Ullr though. Nothing at all. He looked through every story available about the old times when Odin was young and Bor ruled. Nothing.

Each morning Ullr took Loki and set him on his horse in front of him and together they went into the wilderness. Loki was not a fan of the outdoors, but Ullr began to show him this plant or that tree or this track or that moss and Loki found nature a good deal more interesting than he'd thought.

He'd never had a teacher before, and really, any offer would have been met with scorn. As previously mentioned, there was a general lack of academic interest among his people. But Ullr knew things no one else knew. Not just about plants but about history. Because he'd been a part of it. He told him about court politics, about why this Asgardian loathed this other one, previous marriages, illegitimate children, illicit affairs.

Loki was not so enraptured that he didn't verify. He was still Loki after all. But everything Ullr said to him was always chronologically correct and matched whatever small fragments he had on the era.

Loki soon left the deciphering at home and began taking notes on Ullr's vast quantities of information.

On these trips they sometimes stayed late into the night and Ullr would have to make camp. At first he frowned and complained because staying the night in the woods was not what Loki thought of as a fun way to pass time. But Ullr coaxed him into his bedroll with interesting facts about the stars. He seemed to know each one of them and which would help a love spell, which was best to fight by, which was best to hunt by. So like this Loki fell asleep, tucked under his chin.

"Are you a magician?” he asked as Ullr set him on his horse again. The horse’s name was Red Star.

“Hmm. I wouldn’t say so...I’m not from that time.”

“That ‘time’?”

“Ah. Well....in my day, we just sort of...were things. Embodiments of things.”

“And what are you the embodiment of?”

Ullr grinned. “Can you figure it out?”

No. No, he really couldn’t. He thought, and thought and normally Loki could come up with hundreds, thousands of guesses, possibilities. But when he looked at Ullr his mind formed a blank. An expanse, a wasteland of question that had never existed in Loki’s mind before.

\-----------

As the days past, deciphering the strange board and cords became less and less important to Ullr than to play with Loki. Actually play. He would cajole him into water fights when they bathed in a spring. He would wrestle with him, he would rub his hair and muss it up but for some reason Loki didn’t mind that. Ullr always did it gently and affectionately, he was never rough with him. Thor was rough sometimes, unfortunately, he didn't always remember that he wasn't at all as strong as his former self.

And when they played it was always instructive. Ullr taught him the best way to slink out of a hold, how to judge where a strike would come from. Ullr taught him about knives, tiny daggers, where to stick them, where you could hide them, what made one better than another.

Each night Loki fell asleep wrapped in his arms, kept warm against any cold. 

“Ikol, was it like this when you and Thor were young?” he asked his magpie one morning as he stretched to get his mind properly awake. 

Ikol was thoughtful for a moment. If birds could look thoughtful. “No. Thor did not teach. He played but all the learning was on my end.”

“But it was...he was...nice to you?”

“You mean brotherly? You mean did he hold me and coddle me?”

Loki went silent, hearing the haughty sarcasm in the bird’s voice.

“Sort of. When he remembered. But Thor’s memory has never been good.”

Loki thought Ikol sounded sad.

\--------------

But when Loki decoded the board Ullr didn't leave like he said he would. He grinned at him and shrugged, taking the board. "Thanks."

"Then this is goodbye," Loki said stiffly as he watched the board disappear into the satchel on his horse, petting the animal distractedly.

"Not yet. You're fun." 

No one had ever called him fun before. Ever. His face heated up and for the first time Loki realized that Ullr must enjoy his company in return.

"Loki. How about this: come with me. You and me can wander around together and you can learn things and I won't let anyone or anything hurt you. It's really not safe here. I know the others are always creeping around you, wanting to catch you alone. They haven't managed with me around, right?"

Loki nodded.

"And I know this is hard to hear, but it'll get worse when you're older. People like that don't just up and stop. They'll get meaner, they'll be stronger, they'll really hurt you..." He reached over and held the side of his face. "And you're gonna get prettier and there are some boys will do really bad things to boys that'll look like you."

Loki wasn't quite sure what that last part meant but he believed it. But that was fine, his answer was the same.

"Yes! No..." he stopped.

Ullr lifted his eyebrows. "Well, which is it?"

"I can't leave Asgard unprotected..." he whispered, feeling his eyes burn at how much he wanted to go and how much he couldn't.

"Loki...who cares. Seriously, they've done nothing kind to you. Even Thor leaves you here with these terrible people. And they'll survive. They always do. Ragnarok came and they were fine in the end. These things are cycles, circles. Asgard will always rise again. And if it turns to rubblw, they'll need us to help rebuild."

Everything he said made so much sense.

"Just try it for a while, I'm not stealing you like a pig, if you change your mind we'll come right back," he said, picking him up and holding him high in the air, grinning so wide with such white teeth.

Loki finally nodded, smiling a little and Ullr squeezed him close.


	2. Chapter 2

"I have to wait for Thor to return," frowned Loki seriously as they sat by a pond together, Ullr whittling a piece of wood beside him "He won't like it if I've gone off without telling him. And I'd want to say goodbye."

They weren't leaving quite yet. Ullr was waiting for an emerald oak bark caravan to pass through. So Ullr spent his time with Loki, bringing him surprise presents every day. Today, Loki was dressed in the black, tough, linen-like outfit that Ullr had set a seamstress to make for him. It was very...masculine, Loki thought. Not that he cared or made any effort to be masculine or feminine or whatever. He dressed how he liked. But this seemed much less like court wear, much more practical and made for tumbling around in the woods. He felt stronger in it and he wondered if it was some enchantment.

The other god furrowed his brow in concentration as he worked, "He'll stop you."

Loki lifted his eyebrows. "You think?"

"I know. So do you. He's not the sort who likes change, all Asgardians dislike change, even him. He won't like you going off with a stranger."

"You don't feel like a stranger..." Loki hugged his knees, looking out over the water.  
"Because I'm sort of not. Have you figured out what I am?"

Loki pressed his lips together. "Not yet." Something so familiar, and he felt like he kept catching glimpses of it, like melting flakes of snow.

“Here,” Ullr handed him what he’d been working on. It was a perfect ring of wood but when it touched Loki’s palm it burst into fire and light, but it didn’t hurt. It died down, leaving a golden ring that looked like an arrow bent into a circle.

In his palm Loki studied it closely, turning it over with his index finger. “Is it really gold? Which is the glamour?”

“A ‘thank you’ is good too,” laughed Ullr as Loki went red.

“I’m sorry! Thank you!” He was all wide eyes and panic at his rudeness.

Ullr laughed even more and kissed his forehead. “It’s alright, there’s nothing to be ashamed, you value knowledge over social niceties, man after my own heart.”

“I...I’ll give you something in return!” He insisted. “That’s how it’s done, I can’t accept this or you’ll have power over me! I know how it works.”

“Figure out how I did it, that’ll be thanks enough. And you thanked me, that means you accepted it.”

Loki frowned. “Mmm, no, I’ll have to get you something...” He was obviously already turning it over in his head.

“Loki Laufeyson, don’t I already have power over you?” he said quietly and Loki frowned at him more.

“I’m teasing! I’m teasing!” He laughed again, pushing him a little to get him to relax. It worked.

\-----

Ullr surprised him in his alcove later that night. It was a cold night, very cold, fat flakes of snow piling up quickly. Loki had watched several Asgardians heave the massive main doors and an army of servants systematically place heavy tapestries over every window without shutters. Then they placed braziers every few feet of the halls. They didn’t remember Loki’s little corner of the library, no one did. And he wasn’t nearly strong or tall enough to go find a tapestry and attach it to the hooks. Nor was he able to shutter it with planks of wood himself. But he took a brazier for himself and that was fine enough with his nest of blankets. He didn’t mind the cold, really, given his lineage, it was just that he worried about Ikol.

“How did you get in here?”

Ullr shrugged. “Through a door.”

Loki’s brows knit together. He was doing a lot of squinting and frowning around this one.

"You're not happy to see me?"

"Oh! I am! I just..." How did he get in? There were so many wards on the palace!

Ullr sat down on the wooden floor, picking Loki up easily and settling him onto his lap. "You don't have a room?"

"They forgot to give me one. My old self didn't live here.”

“Cruel,” Ullr replied instantly. “I can’t believe you’re helping them at all. You’re a child. Someone should be caring for you.”

Loki replied with silence, staring at his hands.

“Well, I’ll care for you now,” he said, petting under his chin as if he were a bird he was fond of.

“A falconer,” said Loki.

“What?”

“You’re a falconer. Your gloves and arms. You’ve got all the signs of it. Where’s your falcon?”

Ullr lifted his eyebrows, not really looking at Loki’s eyes but his jaw. “He got too old. I let him go. But now you can be my falcon, can’t you?”

“I’m not much of a falcon,” he said, glancing at Ikol. More a magpie.

“No, you’re just like a falcon. Falcons can kill much larger birds, and they’re the fastest. They have big eyes just like you,” the older god cooed, touching his cheek with the side of his finger. He seemed to stare at Loki, studying him for a long time, but he’d seen Loki so much it didn’t really make must sense as to why he’d stare so much now. “Come on, lets find you a room.”

“I’m fine here!” said Loki as he was lifted and held with just one strong arm. He did carry him in a manner similar to how Thor did.

“Of course you are. But you don’t deserve ‘fine’, Loki. You deserve the best. Thor’s out...and Balder is out on a hunting trip. But neither of those seem fine enough for you. Who else is out, can you tell me?”

Loki understood this was a challenge to his knowledge and not actually Ullr being ignorant of who was present.

He ticked names off his fingers. “Idunn is out, she’s investigating the Svartalfheim issue. Frigga and Sif went with her...Hermod is out, he’s always out. Vidar has quarters but he doesn’t live in the palace.”

“So, a son of Odin with a storm giantess mother has quarters and you don’t?”

Loki fell silent and Ullr continued to carry him in warm arms until the godling found something else to say. “But, Ullr, none of this matters! Heimdall will see and stop us.”

“Heimdall can’t see me.”

Loki stared him in the face. “No.”

“Really!” Ullr assured him, grinning. “Have you figured out why?”

He hadn’t.

“Don’t worry your head, Loki. You like the challenge, don’t you?”

"Vidar's the safest bet but Frigga has the nicest rooms, so Frigga it is. Only the best, I said."

Ullr slipped them in easily. Frigga wasn't around but there were bowls of fruit, plates of cheese and hard bread and a bowl of candied apple slices, berries and nuts. Ullr acted as if the suite was his very own, immediately comfortable and familiar with the space, sweeping up the bowl of candied things and flopping down heavily on a chaise with it, starting to feed some to Loki.

Loki ate them until his stomach felt upset and he regretted it. Ullr laughed but held him, rubbing his back and giving him a tea to settle his stomach. He told him about the different things he wanted to hunt, about this creature and that monster, about a great elk, about a massive bear with two heads. It all seemed to go round and round in Loki’s mind. Ullr told him lots of things with so much incredible detail. The colors of a stag, how its prints differed from a buck’s, the color of their eyes, the pelt of a lion, the tuft on the end of its tail, how they hunted. It seemed familiar, and Loki had a sharp glimpse of he and Thor, when they were both young, curled up together, Thor telling him quietly about some adventure he’d had, real or imagined. He would get these flashes of visions sometimes, usually when he was drifting off to sleep. But as soon as he reached to wrap his consciousness around the thought, they would always slip away.

But that was fine.

Ullr’s soothing voice was better, he thought. He was doing it now, when Loki needed it and Thor would never again hold him and pet him and tell him things. Thor didn’t tell him anything. Loki absorbed it all, tucked against Ullr’s broad chest, sleepy.

Ullr slid his arms around Loki, resting his hands on his stomach and he felt his eyes start to slide close at the warmth.

And then things became terrible.

\--------------

At first he laid perfectly still, not believing it but it wasn’t stopping. It wasn’t an accident and Loki’s heart wrenched tightly in his chest.

Of course. Of course, he should have known, he scolded himself as he started sobbing. He was being held fast, Ullr shushing him in his ear. Something about being shushed made him snap into action, he tried to bite and jerk his head to hit him in the nose but Ullr had been holding him carefully as to avoid this. He was so heavy and Loki could feel panic rise in his chest.

Then suddenly yelling and feathers and confusion. Ikol had swept in, pecking at the elder god furiously and in the mess of feathers and swearing Loki was released and he dashed away, panting, his feet skidding on the marble of the floor. He fell down some stairs but immediately got up again and continued to run.

He and Ikol hid on the roofs of Asgard, wrapped in the heavily falling snow. Loki held his magpie to his chest, petting him and crying a little. Usually Ikol scolded him for this but now he was silent.

“Did that ever happen to us before?” Loki asked finally.

“No. But I was never young and alone around him. I was not vulnerable and an easy mark.”

“...But other Asgardian children might have been.”

“I’m sure. He’s been alive a long time, his kind do not have the patience to lie in wait.”

Loki wept more before he could speak again. “I...I have to tell someone. I have to. I have to. I have to do something. There might be others even now.” Voldstagg’s brood? Probably not. None of them seemed despondent that he knew of. How strange that he could think of it so clearly now. Of course. He’d been despondent, alone, an easy mark. Of course.

The others his age (that liked to hurt him whenever they could get him somewhat alone) maybe they could be Ullr’s prey. One or more of them could be taking it out on him. He knew symptoms, he knew profiles of the people who did these things and the profiles of their targets. He knew various methods of coercion that were used. Had been used on him.

He’d been tricked. He. Loki. He’d been tricked. How was it possible? This was his domain. His. No other Asgardian could do what he did, was half as clever as he.

But then he’d never heard of this Ullr before.

No one would believe him. He felt his stomach squeeze and clench. Even if they did, a good amount of them wouldn't care and he choked on more tears. He’d always known he was alone. It’d never bothered him as much as it did now.

He willed himself to get up. Up.

Loki did not cry and when he did, only a little, he told himself firmly.

\--------

"Loki? What is it? What've you done now?"

He stared at up at him, mouth dry.

"Well? Out with it!"

"Nothing. Nothing, it's nothing," he said, and he was darting away back into the dark, feeling a wave of nausea again. He heard Gudrun, Volstagg’s wife, begin questioning Volstagg about the knock at the door as he sped away. He headed for a stable, slipping into warm hay and laying there quietly, shivering but not from an chill in the air.

He could tell Volstagg, Volstagg might believe him. And at the very least, he could stay nothing and stay with him. But...no. No. He wanted to puke and he didn't think Volstagg would ignore that. He'd ask what had happened and Loki would have two choices. Tell him and not be believed. Not tell him and Volstagg would think something else was up his sleeve.

Just the thought of Volstagg red-faced and calling him a liar made him curl more tightly in a ball. He couldn’t prove it. There was no proof at all. Just his word against some other, older god. Would Loki believe Loki? Probably not. No.

No, he was on his own. He had to get rid of Ullr by himself.


	3. Chapter 3

He hid on the rooftops for a day. At the end of the second day Ullr found him. He just suddenly appeared from behind a spire and for a time they just stared at one another. Ikol cawed.

"Loki. I was just trying to show you," Ullr’s spoke first in his soothing voice. Was this what it felt like? Was this what being lied to sweetly felt like? A lie you wanted to believe so much? "Come here. I could feel you. You liked it, didn't you? There's nothing wrong with this. All young boys do this. Come here Loki. I can be patient. We needn’t do it right away. I’ll make sure you’re comfortable next time.”

The amount of struggle, the amount of thought and consideration he was giving this made him want to wretch. Thankfully he stayed in place, he didn’t run to him to cry into his chest the way he half wanted to. He wanted to forget about what had happened. He wanted the good things, all the good things to come back.

Over Ullr’s shoulder he saw Ikol alight on a spire edge and fix him with a gaze. No. he was Loki. No. No. He turned but this time Ullr was ready and caught his wrists. “Loki. Loki, it’s all right. Don’t be afraid,” he soothed. “I won’t hurt you. Just wait, this will feel good, I promise.”

Ikol screeched and dove at the elder god but again, Ullr was ready. He grasped the bird in mid attack and snapped its neck, tossing it out over the edge of the roof. Loki stared as Ikol’s body fell out of sight, feeling his knees go weak. Ikol. His last companion.

And then there was that voice, that booming voice. “Loki? Loki, where are you?” Thor. Thor was back. Thor was home. He was below them, somewhere in the Palace but his voice was loud and booming and could be heard from a good distance. Loki knew if he screamed now Thor would come running. And he stared at the red haired god that towered over him. Ullr knew Thor would come too.

Ullr slipped away from him, lightly tipping off the edge of the roof.

Despite his quiet words he knew it was wrong, the bastard. He knew he didn’t want to get caught at it by anyone.

Freed, he went to greet his brother, heart pounding as he stayed close to him the rest of the day.

\-----------

He slept in Thor’s quarters. He came in after Thor fell asleep and then woke before his brother, slipping out again. This way he was safe.

Until one night Thor spoke with his eyes shut. “Loki. Why do you come here at night?”

Where had his tongue gone? It had vanished these past few days, he’d been reduced to a skittish deer.

“I don’t want to tell you,” he said softly. “Please. Please let me stay. Please,” he heard himself begging. It must have come from some instinct for self-preservation.

His brother was silent for a moment before waving at him to come. Loki came to his bedside then, staring at him again. Then Thor was scooting backwards, pulling back the thick blankets to make space.

“Get in. Come on, we used to do this when we were little. I forgot what it was like to be young and have bad dreams. Don’t sleep on the cold floor.”

Loki stared at the empty space, looking like Thor had offered him a bed of thorns and snakes to lie in.

He ran but not out the door. To a wash basin and vomited into it. Thor was up instantly, holding his hair back. He shushed at him to soothe him but that just made him sob amid his retching, trembling.

Thor waited until he was done, bringing another basin so that his little brother could rinse his mouth. He pushed the black hair from his pale, now sweating face. Thor picked him up then, rubbing his back and then settling him on a plush couch. Thor went and pulled blankets from a stone chest at the foot of his bed, returning to him with pillows and blankets, carefully making a nest for him. He pulled up a stool and sat. “Go to sleep. I’ll sit here.”

Exhausted from vomiting and crying, and feeling a wave of relief for this solution from his brother, Loki finally managed to sleep, longer and more soundly than he had in weeks.

After sending for an extra breakfast for his little brother, Thor headed out. “I’ll be back. I’m locking the door, all right? Only I can get in.”

Thor was not some master of discerning emotion. But he’d seen fear more times that he could count. He knew what fear looked like.

“Heimdall,” he called. “While I’ve been away, did anything strange happen with Loki?” He asked this every now and then. Heimdall was used to it. But this time he was pensive, pausing.

“...I am unsure.”

“What do you mean?” he asked, handing Heimdall a flask of spiced apple mead. He usually brought Heimdall a bread or meat or ale when he asked for his Loki-report, a sort of payment for the other’s patience.

“....there have been...gaps in my understanding.”

“Blindspots?”

He shook his head. “No. If you ask me, I can locate him. But when I try to recall things I’ve seen him do in any sort of detail it becomes vague, hazy. I remember seeing him eat, read, sleep. I’ve seen him study. I’ve seen him ride a horse, I’ve seen him pour over books, I’ve seen him perched on the ramparts.”

“But you haven’t seen him doing anything bad? Or someone picking on him or.....seen him upset?” Thor asked. He hadn’t even heard of anything bad happening in regards to Loki.

The great watchman paused and then nodded. “I saw him...upset. Perhaps. I...no, even that fades. I had not thought any of it strange, not until you asked. Someone is playing with us, Odinson. I like it not.”

Thor wished for his brother’s cleverness. This was not something he could bash in the face and be done with. Who or what could be strong enough to fog Heimdall’s vision and memory? And why was Loki so terrified?

It was terrible of him, but he thought it wasn’t out of the question that Loki had done this himself. He’d done something that had gotten out of hand and it had harmed him in some way. It was very unfair but it was there, it was an explanation.

But on the other hand, Loki had no magic. And this had magic all over it. “Thank you. I’ll look into this.”

“Tell me what you find.” It was an ominous request. Heimdall prided himself in his epithetical talent.

\---------

Thor awoke to his brother whimpering and tossing in his sleep.

Thor picked him up in strong arms and felt him tense in his grip. he relaxed slightly, and Thor settled down on a cushioned chair with him, tucking him under his chin. “It’s all right, little brother. It’s all right.”

He let out a breath that made his slight frame shudder and Thor’s brow furrowed at how small he was and how shaken. “Just a dream, I have you.” Loki replied with a sob.

Thor pet his back and rocked him, looking up at the skylight as he thought, trying to puzzle it out. if only he could ask him things without him falling silent and upset. Perhaps he could ask that bird. “....Loki? Where is your bird?”

More sobbing.

“Ah, did it pass? Loki...” A dead bird, was that what had upset him so? No, it still made no sense. It didn’t explain anything else.

“Oh Loki. Loki, it’s all right,” he assured him over and over, baffled. What had happened?

That night he brought another bed to the room, smaller than his own. And here he set his little brother, tucking him in with lots of blankets. Loki wouldn’t let him hold him through the night, but seemed alright with this arrangement, having the smaller bed next to his own.

The thunder god began giving him a tea to help him stave off bad dreams, to help relax him in general, but still he didn’t leave Thor’s room except to run to his library and bring back armloads and satchels full of books.

Soon there was a little area of Thor’s room that was basically Loki’s domain. It kept Lady Sif from his bed but he could always go to hers. But despite this solution he never did it, needing to stay close to his little brother.

He rather liked having him around in the mornings and evenings, and whenever he came to his chambers. Loki told him all sorts of things he didn’t know. Thor didn’t remember half of it but it was nice to hear him tell it.

\--------

And then one night the door unlocked and Thor wasn’t there.   
“Locked doors don’t mean a lot to me,” Ullr said, his voice sheepish. “I’ve been waiting for you to come out.”

Loki went to the far wall of the room but he moved like he was in a dream.

Loki. Come here. I’ve missed you. I’m sorry. Come here, I brought you something,” he coaxed, dropping the back he was carrying to the ground and pulling a bundle out of it.

It was a bird. Small, fat in it’s youth, its chest a display of bright green and gold while the rest of it was black. “I thought she looked like you. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, I hurt your bird. It was a reflex, I swear. An accident. I’d never hurt you or anything you loved. I promise. Her name is Lurl.”

The bird fluffed itself and went to Loki, settling on a table near Loki’s hand. There was a ribbon on her neck with a little pouch.

“She has something for you. It’s a tea, to help settle your dreams.”

Loki stared at the bird before holding his hand out to it, letting it hop into his palm, his eyes were blank as he looked at it.

“Loki. I love you. You’re the first person I’ve ever been able to relate to, that has the same sensibilities that I do.”

He held out his arms to him. “Come here. Come with me. Together we’ll leave this place and you and I will go throughout The Nine Realms, doing all the things we do best, all the things others don’t understand. We’ll lie and trick and steal, everything we please, we’ll answer to no one.”

Loki stared at him, tears suddenly in his eyes as he took a step forward, the bird held to his chest.

Ullr was smiling one second and then there was a sharp crack and his eyes rolled back.

Gudrun was standing over him with a massive hammer in her hand. It was actually larger than Mjolnir. She put it into her belt and strode over to Loki in a few paces, sweeping him up into her arms.

  
\-------

It is no small thing to cast a god out from his firmament but it had to be done. Gudrun gave Loki to her husband and told him to feed him and pet him and tuck him in with the sweetest of their children, twins with shiny, bouncy curls. She said it so simply that Volstagg knew it was something he would have to do.

Then she went to work. This was not work for her husband, he was too kind hearted and he was no magician. She, Freyja and Gaea were the ones for this task. Together they took him to the woods. When he seemed to be coming to, Gudrun bashed him across the face again to still him. There, in the woods, they made a fire. Freyja had brought the tools and Gaea had brought the chain made from children's hair to bind him to a stump covered in old ruins and blood.

Once he was secure, they woke him. In turn, they each spit on his face, cursing him in old words. First, they cut out his tongue and threw it onto a brazier. Gudrun de-sexed him with her hammer and threw it onto the brazier as well. They filled his eyes with sewing needles. They cut him open and filled the cavity with boiled stones and hot coals.

The coals cooked him inside, leaving him an open, inviting treat for animals. For birds.

For magpies.

The three of them left him there in the woods, on the stump. He would not be able to come back for a long time.

Gudrun took a long hot bath, throwing her bloodied clothes into the cooking fire. She checked on Loki and he was sleeping soundly, nestled between the twins, a little bird tucked to his chest.

Satisfied, she went to bed.

The next morning Gudrun went to tea with Freyja and Gaea. They drank tea and had jam and golden apples from Idunn. They explained to Idunn what had happened because she was a young goddess and didn’t know about the old times. Ullr was an old god, an old trickster from the old times. He had preyed on the children until the three of them had found out and cast him out. The rebirth they’d all experienced had apparently undone their binding from thevery old times.

Idunn sat quietly and no amount of mint jelly would make the sick feeling in her stomach lessen. “Why haven’t I heard this before?”

“It was the time before we wrote anything in any book. When we sang our history,” said Gudrun. “He was a darkness we thought we’d cast out forever.”

“He wasn’t the first we cast out,” said Gaea.

“There were others. Tanath. Uthna. Others. Crimes unspeakable.”

“But no more,” said Gudrun. “Now they must not be unspeakable. Now we must speak them, if we’re to protect Asgard.”

“I wish you had my place on the council,” said Idunn softly.

Gudrun shook her head. “No. No, I’ve never been made to cajole people. I’m good at giving orders but not all that. I’ll coddle a child but I’ll never coddle for diplomacy. That’s not a gift I have.”

Idunn nodded, lying back on her cushions and biting into another apple. "Poor child..." the first time she'd actually thought it and said it, a guilt settling in.

"Ullr's something like his predecessor, as Bor was the predecessor to Odin.

\------------

This time, there was no Borr or Odin to shush the matter. This time, they told all.

That Loki had been the target was probably plain to at least a few, but without confirmation, it was kept to thoughts and uncertain rumors.

They told Thor about it. As his pseudo guardian, he had to know. They sat him down, gave him a strong cup of tea and told him. He retched.

When he was more in control of himself, he went to Loki who had been holed up in Volstagg’s home since that night. He’d been “adopted” by a pair of twins, nearly a pet. They seemed to enjoy holding his hand, speaking to him and telling him about their toys. Normally something like this would have driven Loki insane but something about him had gone quiet inside. In return, Loki had started telling them stories. hesitant at first before finding he had a gift for it (of course he did).

They were much younger, appearing perhaps 8. But something about them was so warm and the kept Loki between them at all times. If Thor didn’t know any better, he’d think these two small children were guarding his brother.

Even when Thor called him to him, the twins came with him. He bade them leave but they stayed put, only looking to Loki to see what he would like. Loki gave Thor a pleading look and his brother nodded, “They can stay.”

“Loki. Gudrun and the others told me everything. About Ullr. I’m....I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” he reached over and held Loki’s hand. After a moment of hesitation Loki came to him, putting his arms around his older brother’s neck and burying his face there.  
Thor hefted him up.

“I brought you someone.” he jerked his chin at the window and a magpie appeared. “We found the body and Idunn fixed him.”

Ikol cawed at him from the sill.

Gudrun made her husband know what he had done that night by turning him away. She told the other two as well and spit in their faces with a curse. And one by one they came to Loki and apologized, each in their own way.

And slowly, things became better.


End file.
